The Shadow

I moved through the crowd of rich college kids like smoke, head to toe in black leather, a tailored coat with silver buttons flaring out around my ankles.

Unlike the expensive Venetian style masks these trust fund babies wore, my mask was a wendigo skull covering the top half of my face, carved from polished onyx, sprouting short curling antlers.

No one knew me here. No one dared say a word. But that was the point.

I wasn’t here to party.

I was here to watch her.

Ava danced at the center of the cavernous ballroom with her friends, a goddess in a red silk dress that came off her shoulders and hugged every inch of her hips, the top half of her face covered by a black furry rabbit mask, a combination that made men fantasize about innocence and filth in the same breath.

Her midnight hair was piled on top of her head, tendrils brushing against her collarbones. Her hands lifted over her head, champagne flute in her delicate fingers, as she swayed her hips to the music.

Stunning.

She didn’t know it yet, but she belonged to me.

Every heartbeat, every breath she took… was mine.

The cavernous ballroom smelled of sweaty bodies, of wax from the thousands of pillar candles dripping from their candelabras and thick bunches of floral black baccara roses.

A string quartet played orchestral versions of the latest club hits, but the music barely registered. Not over the thunder of my pulse.

Apparently, the parents of the Darkmoor College senior hosting this party were away. Or they just didn’t care that their Ballsbridge mansion on the outskirts of Dublin had been converted to a gothic den of debauchery for hundreds of entitled rich kids.

I didn’t belong here, among these boys in tailored suits and metallic masks.

But tonight, I allowed myself this one indulgence.

Ava laughed at something her friend Liath said, tilting her head back, throat exposed, before a giggling Liath was pulled away by a slick-haired boy in a glittering silver half-mask, his hand far too familiar at her waist.

My gaze narrowed on a dark masked figure across the room, standing motionless, his eyes following Liath.

I frowned, sensing the dark energy of another predator in the room, assessing his height, noting the dusting of salt at his temples marking him as an older man.

He definitely did not belong here.

But a whirl of dancing color flashed in my vision and he was gone. From my vision and from my mind.

Ava dragged her other bestie, Lisa, off the dance floor, fanning herself as they stood beside a column, her drained champagne glass now gone.

I slid along the shadows of the wall behind her, just near enough to hear as she leaned over to half-yell something to the redhead over the noise. “You know… it might be hot to fuck someone here with their mask left on.”

Lisa squealed, her voice high and teasing. “Ooo, you naughty slut. You wouldn’t?”

“I would. Maybe,” Ava replied in a low voice. “Imagine… I wouldn’t even need to know their name.”

Her eyes scanned the dance floor, as if searching for someone worthy.

Jealousy hit me like a blade to the ribs, sharp and unwelcome. As if anyone here, any of these glossy boys with whiskey breath and soft hands, could ever be worthy of her.

Before I knew what I was doing, I slipped around the column and came up right behind her. Nearer than I’d been in months…at least, while she was awake.

Her scent hit me first, jasmine, sweat and heat, and my vision narrowed to her slender neck, to her bare shoulders that she’d exposed just for me.

I wanted to bury my mouth against her skin and breathe her in.

Just one taste. One bite.

I leaned in to inhale her, to drink in the warmth rolling off her skin, close enough that my exhale stirred the curls at the base of her neck.

She turned, as if sensing something.

I melted behind the column.

That was close. Far too bloody close. I had to keep my distance. Something easier said than done.

I followed Ava as she moved down a hallway, toward a quieter wing. Maybe to the toilets. Maybe to escape.

She disappeared out of sight and I hurried round the corner.

And nearly collided with her.

She was waiting, arms crossed, chin tilted, her eyes unblinking through her furry half-mask.

My clever girl. She’d set a trap and fucking caught me.

I’d been watching her, following her for years without her knowing.

But lately, I’d been getting reckless, slipping too close to the flame.

I’d started craving more of her, letting myself indulge in it, letting myself get ever closer. Just one more stolen look, one more near miss, the way an addict fools himself into believing one more hit won’t ruin him.

And now, I was going to pay for it.

“Are you following me?” she said, her tone playful and unafraid.

Like she had no idea who I was. How dangerous I was.

I said nothing, revealed nothing. Just chastised myself for being such a fecking eejit.

She stepped in, bridging the last inch between us, the silk of her dress brushing the front of my coat, her jasmine scent wrapping around me like a noose.

Her nearness nearly drove me feckin’ mad, my fingers flinching as I held myself back from grabbing her.

That fantasy she’d whispered earlier, about anonymous sex in a mask, throbbed throughout my body like a heartbeat.

I wanted to give it to her. To make her regret ever fantasizing out loud.

But I couldn’t. I wasn’t allowed to touch her.

“Run,” I breathed. “Before I do something I’ll regret.”

Silly girl, she didn’t run. She leaned in. “And if you catch me…?”

Her teasing challenge pierced me. She was fire, and I was already burning.

I’d made a promise, to keep my distance, to protect her… even from myself.

But I cracked.

Just one touch.

My fingers brushed the side of her neck over that delicate pulse point.

Her breath caught.

Fuck, mine did too.

“When I catch you,” I said, my voice low and gravelly, “I’ll ruin you, little rabbit, body and soul, and you’ll thank me for every bruise I leave behind.”

She shivered, a delicious flush spreading across her upper chest.

She leaned in, her lips barely a whisper from mine. “So ruin me.”

I paused, breath stuck in my throat, right there on the precipice of something irreversible. Of breaking the one promise I’d sworn never to betray. Of destroying everything.

One more second, one more inch, and there’d be no undoing it.

Footsteps and drunken laughter down the hallway broke the moment, saving me from myself.

She turned towards the interruption.

And I slipped back into the shadows where I belonged.

I kept out of sight this time as I watched her stalk the hallways for me like a wolf in silk. With every turn of her head as she scanned the shadows, something inside me twisted.

I wanted to chase her through the darkened hallways and let the monster inside me take over, primal and savage. To pin her against the ground and tear off her dress and ravage her with my mouth, her fingers clutching at my antlers to pull my head deeper between her thighs.

To climb over her and hold her down with my hand to her throat as I claimed her with my cock, as I ruined her, over and over, until she forgot her own name.

But I had made a vow.

Watch. Don’t touch.

A drunk boy veered into her path, his zorro’s mask askew, his laughter slurred and unsteady. He swayed toward her, muttering something.

I tensed.

She tried to side-step him, but he pushed her against the wall, his hands groping at her breasts… and lower.

My vision blurred, my pulse a roar in my ears. I saw red. Pure, blinding fury, hot enough to cauterize the fragile threads of my restraint.

Before I could tear his throat out with my bare hands, she shoved him, hard.

He stumbled backward, laughing like a gobshite, stinking of vodka and notions.

She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She hurried back to the main hall, chin high, ignoring the rude slurs he yelled out at her like it was nothing.

It probably was. I’d seen the way men looked at her, at women in general, like they were entitled to a piece, a grope, a taste, no matter how unwelcome.

How often have women brushed off hands that didn’t belong, comments they didn’t ask for, eyes that crawled over their skin like parasites?

It made me sick.

I couldn’t do anything about all those men. But I could do something about him.

I’d already marked him for retribution, his fate sealed the moment his filthy hands touched what was mine.

The monster inside me demanded to chase him down right now and make him bleed.

There’d be no mercy. Only pain. Only justice.

But not yet.

I made sure that Ava was safely in a cab home before I began my hunt for the disrespectful Zorro.

I found him on the dark mansion grounds, pissing against a bush, swaying so that his piss dribbled over the tips of his shiny Valentino shoes.

When he’d finished zipping up, I came up from behind and kicked out his knees, taking him easily to the ground and holding him down with my weight.

He barely had time to scream before I snapped his mask off his face and shoved the black cloth into his mouth, effectively gagging him. Then I tore open his shirt, black shiny buttons flying out into the bushes.

I pulled out a small hunter’s knife I’d named Geralt, the razor edge flashing in the moonlight as I began his lesson.

“Disrespect her again,” I growled as I began to cut him, “and I’ll make a gravestone from your ribcage before I bury you under it.”

He thrashed beneath me, body convulsing in panic, his screams muffled by the gag. Blood smeared across his chest as I worked the blade slowly, deliberately, each stroke deep enough to leave a scar.

His eyes rolled back, breath hitching, until finally, his body went limp and slack beneath my weight as he passed out.

I leaned back, wiping Geralt against his pant leg to clean off his blood as I admired the single carved the word across his chest.

I’d branded him, making sure he’d never forget how a woman should be treated.

Respect.

* * *

Later, with the blood washed from my hands and having changed into a fresh set of black clothes, I slipped onto Ava’s ivy-covered balcony then broke into her bedroom, my fingers working the picks in her lock like I’d done a hundred times.

I slipped into her room, leaving the door open just a crack.

Her room smelled, as always, like a soft rose room fragrance mixed with the feminine scent of her.

She lay asleep on her bed, barefoot, her makeup smudged, wearing just a night shirt and panties, her dress from earlier crumpled in a pile in a corner along with her heels.

I let out the last of the tension in a long breath.

She was safe.

I dared to get closer, standing by her bed, my chest tight with the echo of what I’d done, a twisted satisfaction coiling in my ribs, the weight of power still warm in my skin.

I’d bled him for her. Marked him. Made sure the world remembered that some women are not prey. They’re protected.

“You’ll never know what I do for you,” I whispered as I brushed a strand of hair from her cheek.

As always, she didn’t stir.

She’d never know. Not yet. But someday… she’d understand.

I wasn’t her villain.

I was her shadow.

My gaze dragging up the length of her bare thighs to the gentle curve of her hips in the moonlight, then higher still to the rise and fall of her soft breasts with every slow breath.

Each inch of her was temptation incarnate, the kind of beauty that could unmake a man without trying.

I ached just looking at her, my dick swelling to press painfully against the front of my pants.

It took everything in me not to climb into that bed and tear her open with my mouth, my hands, my cock.

She’d whispered her fantasies earlier, the ones about strangers in masks and being taken without names. But it wasn’t just the fantasy she wanted. It was me.

She didn’t know it yet, not consciously, but somewhere deep inside, she’d already chosen me. And fuck, the way she looked in her sleep, soft and vulnerable and mine, made me ache to prove it.

Fuck it.

What was the harm in letting myself have some satisfaction? I tugged down my zipper and freed my aching cock.

The pulse in my throat quickened as I pumped some of her moisturizer into my palm, wrapped my fingers around my length, starting with slow, deliberate strokes, the sweet scent of jasmine sending another ache through me.

My eyes never left her sleeping form, imagining how I’d wrap my fist into her long hair, shoving my cock past her slightly parted lips, hearing her choke as I hit the back of her throat, feeling the tight wet heat of her, seeing how pretty she’d look bruising her knees for me, tears running down her hollowed cheeks as I claimed her mouth.

I bit down hard on my lower lip to keep from groaning, tasting blood as I worked my hand faster, gripping the side table to keep my knees from collapsing under me.

As I lost control, the wet, rhythmic sounds of my fist around my cock grew louder, risking waking her. Each breath dragged rough and ragged from my lungs, my chest rising and falling like I’d run miles through hell.

That this was forbidden, that I was claiming her in my mind while she lay innocent and unaware, twisted my gut with shame, even as it sent a darker thrill shivering through every nerve ending, heightening every breath, every stroke.

But sure, wasn’t everything with her steeped in guilt from the start?

A drop of sweat rolled down my temple as I bit back my groans, as I fought to keep my breaths shallow and silent as the pressure built.

I came with a strangled gasp, hot spurts coating my fingers, pooling in my palm. The waves of stolen pleasure that rocked through my body was enough to drown any noble thoughts, any sense of morality.

For a moment, I imagined pushing aside her panties and feeding her pussy with my cum.

It was only fitting. My cum was hers. Hers alone.

The thought alone of watching her cunt dripping with me almost made me insane enough to do it.

Thankfully, sense seemed to rule out. Sort of.

I tipped my cum into her expensive moisturizer, smirking when I imagined her spreading me across her body, wearing my stolen pleasure on her skin.

Then I wiped my hand on a tissue from her nightstand.

My heart still hammered in my chest, half from the savageness of my release, half from the fear of being discovered, as I watched her profile for any sign she’d woken.

But her breaths came steady, her long lashes resting on her high cheekbones.

I’d gotten away with it… again.

Even as relief rushed through me, a deeper truth settled in my bones. This was madness. Obsession. I was playing with fire, but I knew I wouldn’t step away from the flame. Couldn’t.

She was inside me now, carved into my marrow, etched into my soul, buried so deep I’d never claw her out. She was more than a fixation.

She was a sickness I didn’t want cured.

Even though I’d just come, the ache didn’t fade. My muscles still twitched with the aftershocks, my cock already stirring again, starved. The nearness of her, the scent of her skin in the air, was an open wound I couldn’t stop pressing on.

I hadn’t touched her. Not really. And until I did, nothing would sate the hunger clawing at me from the inside out.

But even then, even if I touched her, took her, claimed her, would it ever be enough? Or would she root herself inside me like a parasitic bloom, growing deeper, wrapping around every vein until I was nothing but scaffolding, a cage of flesh built to worship her?

It would be a worthy life just to live for her.

In a way, I already did.

But I couldn’t touch her. That would be the ultimate betrayal.

I tucked myself away and zipped up, but I was too drunk on the afterglow, too sloppy with satisfaction. Too loud. 

Her breathing changed.

I had just enough time to slide back into the shadows before her eyes snapped open on a soft gasp.

Shite. There was no way I was sneaking out now.

I was caught.

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